34

ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES

perienced from the contemplation of supplies of a given
commodity, or of goods in general, at a future date, is less
than is experienced from the contemplation of supplies of
equal amount and otherwise identical, but available now
-ather than in the future.
This lower estimation of future needs and satisfactions
as compared with present needs and satisfactions may be
expressed as a discounting of the future. The rate of
discount varies with different persons, and perhaps with the
same person at different times. With some the needs of the
future are so vividly realised, and the doubt of future ability
to make provision is so emphatic, that the rate is very low,
perhaps even negative, that is to say, that, to be sure of
provision for a future contingency, a present sacrifice will be
endured corresponding to an amount greater than that future
provision. Present savings for future needs are not checked
in such cases, even though payment must be made for the
safe-keeping of the stores laid up for the future. Were no
revenue securable from savings, these would not in such cases
cease to be made. Similarly with savings from incomes
whose magnitude exceeds the needs which habitually
demand satisfaction on the part of the receiver of such
income. But in addition to such saving as is independent
of earnings anticipated on the savings themselves, there is
some which is stimulated by, and dependent on, the amount
to be secured from the investment of the savings. Such
savings have a supply-price, and the higher the price the
larger the volume of savings. Two influences have been
prominent, in the history of recent generations, as affecting
savings. The one is the more vivid realisation of the need
of making provision for the future, tending to enlarge
savings, the other the fall in the amount yielded to invested
capital, tending to restrain savings. With these, an enlarged
fund from which savings are possible, and increased civil
security, Ze. improved guarantees of the enjoyment of the
fruit of savings, have also powerfully stimulated savings.
The actual stream of savings is determined in volume, as
the stream of supply is determined in the case of ordinary
~ommodities. on the one hand bv the return to be secured